THE PRESTIGE

"Actually, I did love the stage stuff. I loved it all. I did a lot of work with Ricky Jay and Michael Weber on the style of performance. I really modeled my character, in terms of style, on a guy called Channing Pollock, who was a magician of the '50s and actually became a movie star in France later. He was American, I think - or maybe English. That's sort of who I modeled him on."

- Hugh Jackman

“I was reading about Houdini just for my own pleasure before this, so maybe there's something serendipitous about that. I find the world fascinating, particularly, actually, this era - which is that Houdini era - because magicians were the movie stars, rock stars of the day. There was an incredible contract with the audience at that time. I don't know if you're aware, but in America, spiritualism was an even larger religion or way of thought than Christianity. Magicians were seen as very real kind of mediators between the other world and this world. People bought into the magician's shtick, really, whereas now they don't. I think the only thing that is really similar now might be mind-reading. The magicians who do mind-reading stuff...I think people are genuinely amazed by that, and might actually think that there's something real going on there. But most stuff, people know it's a trick. They're just sort of interested in how it's done.”

- Hugh Jackman